


A Private Farewell

by UninspiredPoet



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Angst, Memories, Other, Regret, Self-Reflection, private moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 21:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18786541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UninspiredPoet/pseuds/UninspiredPoet
Summary: The Alliance marches upon Lordaeron. Sylvanas says her goodbyes.((Disclaimer: My not-for-profit transformative work is only published by me on Archive of Our Own. I do not give my consent or authorization for it to be reproduced or displayed on any third-party websites or apps.))





	A Private Farewell

Desolate. Empty. Hollow. ...Forsaken. 

So many words for how she...well, now. ‘Felt’ wasn’t the best phrase for it, was it? 

No. Not anymore. 

She couldn’t even feel the sun’s attempt at cutting through the haze of the ruins where she was laying, staring up into the gloom. Child of the Sun, indeed. 

Oh, she remembered, now. Yes. She remembered. Remembered a time she ran wild through the forests of Quel’Thalas while the sun kissed her skin in bright little mottles through the canopy of gilded leaves. She remembered the shadows, too. The shadows between the sun spots. 

She lived there, now, in those shadows. The ones between the sunlight. They had become her whole world. They had become _her_.

No, that wasn’t right, either. Shadows had been a relief from the sweltering heat of summer, then. They had been a place to slip down and find solace in the cradle of ancient tree roots. A place to shut her eyes and rest and allow the weight of her world to slip away...if only for a moment. 

There was no such place, now. Even in ruins as crumbled as that once upon a time world, there was no relief. There was nothing. 

Oh, she knew. She knew they were coming for her. The Alliance. That’s what had brought her here, of course. Long had she sought some semblance of sense in the rubble and dust that surrounded her. She’d thought maybe - just maybe - tonight she would find it. 

The sound of the heel of her boot sliding down the fallen column she was laying upon caused her eyes to fall shut for a moment and a shuddering breath left her. She knew her cloak was protecting her from the stonework beneath her. She could tell the clothing she was wearing was lighter than her usual fare. 

Little things like that. Ghosts, perhaps. Ghosts like those floating around in the haze only slightly less lost than she was. Gods, at least she had purpose. 

Purpose. A funny word, that. So many meanings and interpretations...interpretations that were so rarely understood. 

Oh, the anger. There it was. Now this she could feel. She could feel it bubbling in the stillness of her chest where her heart no longer beat. She could feel it burning through her veins along with the ichor that filled them. 

They would never understand.

Eyes that glowed like the insides of coals when prodded opened slowly, then. Ears that were faintly mottled - that would never lift as proudly as they once had - shifted slightly. She couldn’t hear it, yet. She couldn’t hear the marching. No, it would be another few days, she suspected. 

A hundred hundred boots upon ruined ground belonging to those that had never felt the endless black. Boots belonging to those who would come to claim their pound of flesh from the monster who had led the Horde to war. 

They wouldn’t, of course. No. It wasn’t something she would gloat about. It wasn’t something that gave her any satisfaction as she lay there. It was just the reality of what was to come. 

Reality. 

A soft breath left her as that word played in her mind and she stood slowly and without any effort. Nothing took effort, now. Not really. She dropped from her perch and landed with an eerie silence in the dust and broken stone below. A fall that might have broken most living things. 

She had been one of those things once...such a short time ago. So had the dark rangers patrolling the forests in the distance. She was so used to the sounds they made to one another they didn’t disturb her in the slightest. 

They were almost welcome, really. The snapping of a twig none of them would ever have been foolish enough to break unintentionally. A hiss that could have easily been a spider or one of the great cats of their homeland. That’s where they had learned the language of the forest, after all. All of them. Even her. Even the Banshee Queen. The Warchief of the Horde. 

Soon enough, there would be no need for such covert communication. Soon enough, she would be shouting orders from the battlements of the only place left that was truly hers. Then...too soon...it would be gone. Yes, even this. Even this blighted, nigh uninhabitable place would no longer be hers. 

Ah, so it goes. 

Her listless path took her toward the inner city - toward the elevators guarded by monstrosities that did little to disrupt her privacy. The city itself was abuzz with activity - activity she had ordered into being only hours before. Her people, as they had always been, were her first concern. Be they High Elves or Forsaken, it mattered little. She would sacrifice her city, yes. But not them. 

She forced thoughts of Silvermoon from her head as quickly as they came, stalking towards the Royal Chamber more swiftly - as though her greatest failure could be outrun by a quickening of her pace. 

It was easy to not be seen here, if one wished to be alone. There was darkness aplenty to manipulate - to move through unseen. It didn’t take long to get to her private quarters - not when she took the back passageways that led directly to them. There were no guards. She had already seen to that. 

No, this was to be a private farewell. 

One that would start at the beautifully carved desk she had spent many days and just as many nights hunched over, especially as of late - now that her time wasn’t better spent in Orgrimmar. She traced the edges of it with her fingertips. The fillagree in the fineness of the wood. It would remain. All of it would remain. 

No sooner had her fingertips left her desk than they were trailing along the always slightly damp, cold stone of the walls - her steps leading her to the seldom-used bed in the corner of the largely bare room. 

_A rest would be nice._

Foolish thoughts. Foolish thoughts followed by the sound of leather glove-tips stroking over black silk. The finest silk money could buy. Silk she could no longer feel against her bare skin on the rare occasion she could slip into it. 

Oh, but she’d loved it long ago. One of the luxuries she’d afforded herself when she was younger. And, now...silk fit for a Queen who would never again feel its gentleness against her flesh. 

It was only a matter of time before she crossed paths with her armor stand and the bow leaned against it. Now, she touched along the ridges of bone and tested the point of the tip against the leather of her glove. A quick, pleased smile crossed her features as she felt it cash. Ah, the armorer had been thorough. 

With the armor, itself, as well. Oh, he could have done more. He could have re-worked the leather until it shone. He could have polished the steel until it was blinding in the light of day. 

She didn’t want that, though. Things like that weren’t for her any longer. Let it rust. Let the hem of her cloak continue to fray. Lest someone think she cared about anything at all. Lest someone mistake her for who she once was. They had forgotten so quickly.

A luxury she didn’t share with the rest of the world. There was only one thing left that she shared with all the others, now.

War. A language she had always spoken. One that everyone spoke. Every man, woman, and child on Azeroth. Some better than others. None better than her. 

All that she was had been forged in its fires. Emblazoned into her very flesh, made real in the scars she would forever bear. Like patterns in a finely crafted blade. 

Ah, her books. A faint flicker passed through her eyes as she glanced along the spines of the volumes she had collected. These, too, would stay. They were merely memories. She knew the contents of them. She knew the contents of them like she knew the contents of the chest nearby. The chest she would never open again. 

A chest of tattered blues and golds. Perhaps a feather or two. White and resplendent...or perhaps stained with her own blood. She had forgotten, now. 

Her lips parted faintly as she knelt before it and stroked along the fine elven inscription along the curved top of it. An inscription that had once pulsed with magic that was now gone. She splayed her fingers out along it. Brushed against the lock with her thumb. Had there been something here...something that didn’t only belong to her, but perhaps to her family? ...Her mother? 

She stood quickly, clenching her jaw and steeling herself against the temptation of looking. She looked, instead, back to her bed, and began undressing. Her clothing was soon a pile of dark, muted tones on the floor, and her head was on one of the pillows near the top of the bed as she slid her strong, hard legs beneath the sheets. 

Nothing. But if she closed her eyes, she could reminisce how this had felt. For a while, she did. 

The illusion was thin. Brittle. Dangerous. 

And so, she thought of other things. She thought of her foolish propensity to find a bedmate before battle. The weakness in her that had driven her into the arms of lovers in order to steel herself against the morning to come. She thought of the last war. The last war where she had such a weakness. The war she did not survive. She thought of how there had been no one left. It didn’t matter that she’d been beautiful. It didn’t matter that she’d been alive and warm. 

It was better this way. Alone. No distractions. No wasted energy. Only the half-aware state she slipped into for as long as she would allow herself.

Tomorrow night, perhaps, she would hear the approach from the battlements. She would see the pinpoint light of campfires of the righteous Alliance horde coming to right perceived wrongs like an army of gods. 

Like an army of fools. 

Again, her home would be taken from her. Only this time, she would allow it. And with it, they would burn in their righteousness. 

So blinded were they, that they would never realize the only wrongs they would be righting would be their own. Against her people. Against her. 

Perhaps they would learn, as she did, that valiance is a very poor shield against death. A death that was truly that. 

One that she envied them.


End file.
